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How did two Harvard Innovation Lab alumni teams achieve valuations of more than $1 billion. In a discussion moderated by i-lab executive directorMatt...
- May 2021
- Article
Mutual Funds as Venture Capitalists? Evidence from Unicorns
By: Josh Lerner, Sergey Chernenko and Yao Zeng
The past decade saw the rise of both “founder-friendly” venture financings and non-traditional investors, frequently with liquidity constraints. Using detailed contract data, we study open-end mutual funds investing in private venture-backed firms. We posit an...
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- January 2021
- Case
Andela: Africa's AWS for Talent
By: Caroline M. Elkins, Tarun Khanna and Joyce J. Kim
Five years after the company’s founding, Andela, a company that built and trained remote engineering teams, became arguably Africa’s greatest technology unicorn. By January 2019, Andela raised $100 million in Series D funding. As Andela looked to scale in an...
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- August 2020 (Revised November 2020)
- Case
Gogoro: From Electric Scooter to Energy Platform
By: Tarun Khanna and Billy Chan
The founder of Gogoro had always wanted to revolutionize the energy market from day one since he started the electric scooter business that featured an innovative battery swapping technology. Over the course of five years, he had developed a premium line of electric...
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- May 2020
- Supplement
Valuing Peloton
Peloton Interactive, a well-known unicorn in the connected fitness space, had gone public with a market capitalization of over $8.0 billion. In the weeks following its public debut, Peloton’s stock price fell by over 25%. Taylor Knox, a stock analyst and enthusiastic...
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- May 2020
- Case
Valuing Peloton
Peloton Interactive, a well-known venture-capital-backed unicorn in the connected fitness space, recently had gone public with a market capitalization of over $8.0 billion. However, in the weeks following its public debut, Peloton’s stock price had fallen by over 25%....
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- November 2019 (Revised May 2020)
- Case
Collibra
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Jeffrey F. Rayport and Julia Kelley
Founded in 2008 at Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Collibra was a data intelligence company that found product-market fit in the years after the global financial crisis when many companies were under pressure from consumers and governments to improve their data management...
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Keywords:
Entrepreneurship;
Governance;
Innovation and Invention;
Technological Innovation;
Markets;
Technology;
Information Technology;
Software;
Technology Adoption;
Technology Platform;
Semantic Web;
Customer Focus and Relationships;
Customer Satisfaction;
Expansion;
Information Technology Industry;
Technology Industry;
Europe;
Belgium;
Brussels;
North and Central America;
United States;
New York (city, NY);
New York (state, US)
- May 2019
- Teaching Note
Careem: Raising a Unicorn
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai
Teaching Note for HBS No. 818-022.
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- February 2019 (Revised September 2019)
- Case
Theranos: The Unicorn That Wasn't
By: Joseph B. Fuller and John Masko
In 2003, 19-year-old Elizabeth Holmes founded a startup dedicated to making blood testing easier and more affordable. By 2015, her company, Theranos, was worth $9 billion. It boasted a star-studded board and contracts with national pharmacy and supermarket chains...
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Keywords:
Theranos;
Blood;
Lab Testing;
Fraud;
Holmes;
Balwani;
Shultz;
Carreyrou;
Securities And Exchange Commission;
Food And Drug Administration;
Fda;
Sec;
Health Testing and Trials;
Corporate Accountability;
Organizational Culture;
Misleading and Fraudulent Advertising;
Crime and Corruption;
Entrepreneurship;
Medical Devices and Supplies Industry
- October 2018
- Case
Zenefits Board of Directors (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz
In early 2018, the time seemed right for Zenefits investor and director Lars Dalgaard to reflect on whether Zenefits had the right board of directors to shepherd the company through its next stages of growth. For the company whose name combined the words “benefits,”...
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Keywords:
Ethics;
Business Model;
Corporate Accountability;
Governing and Advisory Boards;
Corporate Governance;
Crisis Management;
Entrepreneurship;
Human Resources;
Leadership;
Risk Management;
Venture Capital;
Technology Industry;
Telecommunications Industry;
Information Technology Industry;
United States;
California
- September 2018 (Revised November 2018)
- Case
Careem: Base Camp or Mountain Peak? Designing an OS for Scaling
By: Shikhar Ghosh, Gamze Yucaoglu and Alpana Thapar
This case focuses on designing a fast growing organization. It is part of a two-case set that is taught together to cover the scaling journey.
Careem, a Dubai-based ride-hailing service aimed to ‘simplify and improve the lives of people, and build an awesome... View Details
Careem, a Dubai-based ride-hailing service aimed to ‘simplify and improve the lives of people, and build an awesome... View Details
- August 2018 (Revised August 2019)
- Case
Oscar Health Insurance: What Lies Ahead for a Unicorn Insurance Entrant?
By: Leemore Dafny and Victoria Marone
Keywords:
Oscar Insurance;
Fintech;
Us Health Care;
Affordable Care Act (aca);
Health Insurance Marketplaces;
Insurer Competition;
Provider Consolidation;
Market Entry;
Health Care and Treatment;
Entrepreneurship;
Market Entry and Exit;
Negotiation;
Growth Management;
Health Industry;
Insurance Industry;
New York (state, US);
New Jersey
- August 2018
- Case
BlackBuck (A)
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai
The case presents the challenges of scaling an asset-heavy company (that relies on its operations). It highlights how decisions on the early team impact a company’s ability to scale, linkage between growth and cash flows, as well the organizational impact of high...
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- January 2018 (Revised October 2019)
- Case
ZBJ: Building a Global Outsourcing Platform for Knowledge Workers (A)
By: Feng Zhu, Weiru Chen and Shirley Sun
ZBJ.com (ZBJ), an online platform that connects knowledge workers to small- and medium-sized enterprises, is China’s largest outsourcing platform. Founded by Mingyue Zhu in 2006, ZBJ had grown into a unicorn with 4,000 employees and a daily transaction volume of RMB15...
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- September 2017
- Case
Careem: Raising a Unicorn
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Alpana Thapar
This case follows two ex-McKinsey consultants, Magnus Olsson and Mudassir Sheikha, who in search of their true purpose decide to found Careem, a Dubai-based ride-hailing service. Following its launch in July 2012, Careem experiences rapid growth of 30% per month in the...
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- March 2017 (Revised March 2019)
- Case
Ant Financial (A)
By: Feng Zhu, Ying Zhang, Krishna G. Palepu, Anthony K. Woo and Nancy Hua Dai
Headquartered in Hangzhou (China), Ant Financial has grown into a fintech “Unicorn.” The fintech empire that the company established spanned verticals such as mobile and online payment (Alipay), money market fund (Yu’e Bao), wealth management (Ant Fortune),...
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- December 2016 (Revised December 2018)
- Case
From Start-Up to Grown-Up Nation: The Future of the Israeli Innovation Ecosystem
By: Elie Ofek and Margot Eiran
In June 2016, Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, wrestled with how to sustain Israel’s strong innovation track record and the country’s reputation as the “startup nation.” Despite the economic miracle the country had wrought since its founding, he...
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Keywords:
Israel;
Israeli Start-up Nation;
Innovation Economy;
Entrepreneurial Mindset;
Scaling-up;
Unicorns;
Innovation Clusters;
High-tech;
Innovation Management;
Multinational Corporation R＆d Centers;
Social Equality;
Two-tier Economy;
Liberalizing An Economy;
Foreign Investment;
Military Service;
Quality Of Human Capital;
Socioeconomic Gaps;
Labor Force Participation;
Government Initiatives;
Innovation and Management;
Entrepreneurship;
Venture Capital;
Business Startups;
Government and Politics;
Economy;
Equality and Inequality;
Education;
Resource Allocation;
Globalization;
Israel
- November 2016 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
Square, Inc. IPO
By: Ramana Nanda, Robert White and Lauren G. Pickle
In November 2015, Square, Inc. launched its initial public offering (IPO). The IPO had an offering price of $9 per share, lower than the $11 to $13 estimate that had been outlined in the preliminary prospectus and 42% below the $15.50 share price in its most recent...
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- April 2016 (Revised November 2017)
- Case
InMobi: Reimagining Mobile Advertising
By: Sunil Gupta and Saloni Chaturvedi
InMobi, a mobile advertising company, considered one of India's first unicorns, has launched a new product called Miip. InMobi hopes that the product will grow its revenue eight times by 2018. Visually identified by a mascot, Miip seeks to reimagine adverting by...
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Keywords:
Mobile App;
Advertising;
India;
Software;
Globalization;
Online Advertising;
Advertising Industry;
China;
India